When soft tissue such as a ligament or a tendon becomes detached from a bone, surgery is usually required to reattach or reconstruct the tissue. Often, a tissue graft is attached to the bone to facilitate regrowth and permanent attachment. Techniques and devices that have been developed generally involve tying the soft tissue with suture to an anchor or a hole provided in the bone tissue. Knotless suture anchors, such as the two piece Arthrex PushLock® anchor, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,329,272, have been developed to facilitate tissue fixation to bone.
It would be desirable to provide a knotless suture construct which has a design that allows tensioning and retensioning of the construct as necessary and upon insertion into bone. Also needed is a knotless suture construct that has the ability to be passed around tissue using standard techniques and then be fixed and tensioned in a straightforward manner. Also needed are methods that easily create self-cinching knotless constructs.